Joseph Alexander broke the stereotype of opening a business at a young age. After the 9/11 attack, he moved to Dallas and began his career as a designer. He was born in Jersey City, New Jersey where he grew up wishing to be a musician after being mandated into taking piano lessons. He was heavily involved in rock/indie sounds and taught himself how to play the guitar at the age of 15. In high school, Joseph sparked an interest in design and fashion when compliments on his punk/skater-esque style became more consistent- He was noticed in a different way.

After receiving his High School Diploma, Joseph took a step back to figure out what he wanted to do next without jumping headfirst into a foreign environment where he’d be stuck doing something he didn’t like. As a first-generation immigrant, he was torn between making his parents happy and making himself happy because the expectation was laid that he “was supposed to be a doctor or something. Yeah…no”. It took time to break the barrier but his parents came to an understanding that what they wanted for him wasn’t always best.

2011 was the commencement of his journey as a designer when he and some friends opened a small online business that evolved into a storefront shortly after. Granting he was barely an adult and the road was bumpy it gave him the experience needed to draft a vision of the potentials he could attain in the future.

With inspiration from his muse and birthday twin (April 5th), Pharrell Williams, Joseph was influenced on how an icon can break the barriers between music, art and fashion and went on to drafting his own projects. Like most artists he used social media to promote the release of his small collections every Spring/Summer and Fall/Winter but his biggest struggle was using the safe route of commitment versus doing what makes a person genuinely happy. He learned how to break the force of creativity and let it come naturally and fun so he could personalize his pieces to the fullest. He now releases his collections when he knows they’ve been well planned and executed at byjosephalexander.com.

Joseph is working on bringing a sense of community and oneness together through his designs to prove that everyone can be the cool kid invited to the party. It’s the little things that count to him and through connections from his small vacation trips, he’s able to reach different time-zones and share his vision to reflect on how other people have the same interests.

In the next five years, Joseph plans to continue creating and designing because, “There’s so much untapped potential everywhere. I want to do everything. That’s the problem with me, haha. Just thinking about it makes me feel like a child who’s found the golden ticket to the Chocolate Factory.”

We #COSIGN Joseph because of his ability to bring people together through fashion and design, no matter their background.